


Winter Moomin

by esama



Category: Moominvalley (Cartoon 2019), Mumintroll | Moomins Series - Tove Jansson, 楽しいムーミン一家 | Moomin (Anime 1990)
Genre: Body Modification, Don't copy to another site, Fantastical domesticity, Fishing, Gen, Hobbies, Insomnia, Isolation, Loneliness, Skiing, Sledding, Snowed In, Winter, Wood carving, neither in the usual context tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-24 12:15:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30072111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/esama/pseuds/esama
Summary: Being awake in winter time is like a great adventure – up until the point where Moomintroll finds that he just flat out cannot go back to sleep.
Comments: 81
Kudos: 189





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Proofread by nimadge, many thanks!
> 
> Now for something COMPLETELY DIFFERENT...

Being awake in winter time is terribly exciting and thrillingly scary and something like an adventure – up until the point where Moomintroll finds that he just flat out _cannot_ go back to sleep. Even after the adventures and seeing Too-ticky and the Lady of the Cold and showing the Ancestor into the stove and everything, even after he's eaten a whole belly full of Too-ticky's fish soup… he cannot fall asleep.

He tries, for sure he tries. He tucks in all warm and cozy, he nuzzles into his pillow, he thinks of spring thoughts and tries to imagine Snufkin's new spring song and fails utterly, and wants to fall asleep all the quicker for it – and he can't. An hour passes as he turns and twists and tries to somehow find a position more comfortable than the one he started in, and he can't fall asleep. He gets an extra blanket from the guest room closet to make it extra warm and cosy in his bed and tucks in again, and again sleep eludes him. It grows darker and darker and _pitch black_ outside as the night darkens already impossibly dark day, and he still... isn't... asleep.

By the time his clock tells him it's morning, though it grows barely any lighter outside, Moomin lays back on his bed with the horrible knowledge in his belly – the knowledge that he cannot fall asleep again. His winter sleep has been slept – he's used up all his hibernation tiredness, and he's fully awake now, like it or not. There would be no sleep for him.

"There are months of winter still," he murmurs, as the realisation grows like a terrible blooming plant, like the frosty ferns that grow on window panes, cold and a little bit unreal. "There are months of winter still, and I _cannot sleep_." And he's getting hungry again, too!

This is a problem.

* * *

He tries the pine needles again, but they're harder to eat than ever. He's never cared much for them, but they're so dry now, dry and tasteless – in autumn, when they'd gathered them, they'd been nice and supple, tough, but full of flavour. Now it's like eating dry twigs.

"Maybe if I gather new ones, fresh off the trees," Moomin mutters, unhappy, as a bit of a pine needle crumbles in his fingers, so dry that light pressure breaks it into splinters. Sighing and shaking his head, he leaves the dry needles where they are, and goes to burrow out of the house again.

It's colder outside than it had been the day before, with a terrible dry _chill_ that sinks right into his fur and makes the very tips of his paws and ears lose all feeling. There's wind too, now, and it makes the cold worse still, making it feel as though it's blowing right through him and taking all the warmth he holds inside with it!

Still, he is out now, and he needs pine needles, so he goes to look for them, even as the cold bites at his nose and makes his eyes water in a way that has nothing to do with how bad he feels - though he feels properly terrible too. Thankfully, there are pine trees not too far, and with the snow laying so thick all around them he can get at the newest, youngest branches with ease, taking handfuls of needles and then whole branches in his hurry to get back inside, where it's marginally warmer.

Wondering where Snufkin might be right now, if it's nice and warm there, Moomintroll sits alone in the kitchen and rips tough green needles off their hardy branches, setting them in a bowl for good measure. They don't look particularly appetising, but at least they're not as dry as the needles from autumn are, being slightly softer and less like twigs.

Eating them isn't any better now, either, for winter has made them very bitter, and his hunger seems to make the flavour even worse. But needs must. "With this I better fall asleep soon," Moomintroll mutters while grimacing through another mouthful. "And then I will wake up when it's spring, and warm, and nice, and Snufkin is back with a new song and stories from the warm south. And that's that."

He finishes the whole bowl determinedly, before marching up to his room – trembling all the way from the cold creeping right in through the windows. Grateful for his own wisdom for getting an extra blanket, Moomintroll dives into his cold bed, burrowing under the blankets and curling up tight to keep the warmth in. There, he closes his eyes, breathes deeply in and out…

And does not fall asleep, at all.

* * *

"Moomintroll? I thought you'd gone back to sleep by now!" Too-ticky says, surprised to find him outside the bathhouse again.

"I tried, but sleep eludes me," Moomintroll says, wretched and shivering from the tip of his tail to the points of his ears – it's so much colder now than it had been the day before, and the way to the bathhouse was longer in winter, it feels like. "I don't suppose yo-you know how a mo-moomin might – "

"Come, come, let's get you inside, cannae be standing out in the wind like this, it'll sap the warmth right off your bones!" Too-ticky interrupts and ushers him inside – where the stove is ablaze and wonderful to the point where it becomes _horrible,_ and Moomin's paws and ears and tail begin to burn and itch with the warmth returning to them.

"Now, what were you saying?" Too-ticky asks, worried.

"I hoped you might know how I might fall back asleep," Moomin says, miserable, rubbing at his itching tail. "And maybe wouldn't mind sharing some food, again? I tried eating pine needles, but –" his stomach growls, and Moomintroll trails away, embarrassed.

"Hmm-hmm," Too-ticky says, while quickly whipping up another bit of food, a salted fish fried over the stove. "Cannae say I know much about how modern moomins sleep, and your ancestor minded himself, more or less. I figured you lot know better than I do."

"Mamma would know, but she's asleep, and won't wake up. Pappa either," Moomintroll says with a sigh. He'd tried to wake them again, to no avail – it was like trying to shift boulders, and he didn't much like the idea of doing them some injury, just to rouse them.

Too-ticky hums, thoughtful. There are invisible little creatures setting the table, and Moomin watches them while rubbing his tail between his palms. They're very little, whatever they are – wonder if they get cold at all.

"Don't you have a great deal of books at the Moominhouse?" Too-ticky asks, serving him the fish. "I seem to recall that Moominpappa has a great collection. Maybe there is something there, that might help you."

"Books? Oh," Moomintroll says. "Oh, I am such an idiot – you're right! There's loads of books there – but I don't know if any of them are about hibernation. I didn't even think to check, I was stupid with hunger. Thank you," he says, when an invisible shrew puts a fork in his hand.

"Well, hunger addles the minds of the best of us," Too-ticky says sympathetically. "How about after you've eaten you come fish with me, and we get you something to take back – that way, if it turns out reading will take a while, you will have something to eat in between books."

"That would be wonderful, Too-ticky, thank you so much," Moomin says, brightening up.

"No bother at all – and I cannae say I mind the company. Now eat your fish, so we can go and catch some more," Too-ticky says, smiling, and Moomin tucks into his meal with gusto.

* * *

At first Moomin isn't sure _how_ they're to fish, with the ocean all frozen up. Do they go all the way to the very edge where North turns to South and the ice ends? No, apparently not.

Too-ticky has sawn a hole into the ice, and has a ladder reading down _under it_. "It froze when the water was very high, and then with ebb it went down – wonderful, isn't it?"

"It's like a cave. A great big watery… icy cave," Moomin murmurs with wonder, his ears perking up as his words echo. It's very dark underneath, too – you wouldn't think it would be, with snow being so white and ice being so translucent, but no light gets down through the ice above them. It is kind of wonderful.

Wonder if Snufkin had ever fished in an ice cave like this. It seems like something he might enjoy… if he had enough clothing.

Too-ticky gives Moomintroll a fishing pole and a colourful lure made of strings and bird feathers, and together they set down to fish, Moomin trying not to shiver too obviously in the cold. Too-ticky notices anyway.

"I guess a moomin's coat isn't thick enough for winter," she comments and hands him her pole. "Hang on, I'll get you something from the bathhouse." The something ends up being a blanket, which is a little embarrassing, but also great – it is much better with it. "I suppose, if you stay awake, you might need to get some clothes. A nice sweater and hat and some boots."

"Perish the thought," Moomin says, miserable again at the thought. "Being awake all winter seems very dreadful. What do you even do in winter, when you can't go anywhere, or do anything?"

"Well, you can go places and you can do things. Just not the same things you do in spring and summer. You can still fish, albeit in different places," Too-ticky remarks. "You can still have adventures, they'll just be winter adventures. Have you ever skied before? Or gone sledding? I think you might enjoy sledding."

"No? What is sledding?"

Too-ticky tells him of various winter activities, all of which sound sort of like wonderful nonsense one might enjoy in warmer weather, and together they fish up five very nice specimens for Moomin to take back and to make a meal out of, should sleep keep on eluding him.

"And I will be here for a good long while yet, if you need a friendly ear," Too-ticky promises. "I might even make a sled for you to try, the next time, if you stay awake."

"That's a wonderful idea, though I hope I won't stay awake," Moomin sighs and reluctantly returns her blanket to her. "Thank you again."

It's a little warmer as he heads back, but not by much. Still, the promise of home and maybe a solution in one of Pappa's books speeds him along, and his tail isn't even that numb when he reaches back.

* * *

With a lantern sitting on Pappa's writing desk, Moomintroll tucks himself into a reading nook with blankets and pillows, and cracks open the first book he thinks might offer some solution – one of Pappa's history books about trolls and their habits. It's a very dry reading, overall, and he's already read the parts about moomin ancestors sleeping in stoves and kilns when they could, and that's not very helpful. He's not about to climb in with the ancestor – he's not sure if he'd even fit.

The book has a little bit about other trolls that is interesting – little bit about snorks, and mymbles, and even a passing mention about mumriks, which he thinks is probably completely wrong, because it doesn't fit Snufkin at all… but nothing about what he's looking for.

" _And come winter_ ," Moomin reads outloud, in a somewhat annoyed voice, " _they find a nice nook to curl up with a belly full of pine needles, to sleep all the way until spring._ Wonderful – but _how_ do they do that, how does one fall into hibernation sleep in the first place?"

Nothing about it, except vague indication to _instincts_ and _having the noses for it,_ which is very unhelpful. He clearly doesn't have a nose for hibernation – mostly he has a nose that itches and stings and feels very dry. It's like on a very hot day in mid summer, when it has not rained in days, only it can't be that, because it's _cold_. Can it be cold _and_ dry?

"Well, what do I know about winter," Moomintroll murmurs and closes the book, pulling the blankets around himself and shuddering a little. His words send little thin wisps of vapour into the air, which disappear quickly. It's fun in fall, when that happens, for all that it's a sign of winter coming – now it doesn't seem quite so fun. Mostly it just feels lonely and cold.

Moomintroll spends a moment huddled there, hugging his knees and trying to feel warm. Around him the house feels very lonely, all dark and quiet and cold – even when he knows Mamma and Pappa are right there, in their bedroom, fast asleep… it still feels as though he's all alone, completely alone in this dark, cold place his home has become.

There's cold air sneaking in through the window, little gusts, like winter is breathing in, and Moomin's eyes water a little at the thought of being stuck all alone for the rest of the winter. Weeks and weeks of it, months until spring, with no one for company and nothing to do – and nothing to eat, either.

For a while, Moomintroll dwells on it and feels sorry for himself.

Then he rubs at his eyes and at his leaking snout, and then gets up to get another book, hoping he might find a solution in a tome titled Winter Wonderland.

He does not.

* * *

Everything feels better and worse, when he lights a fire in the kitchen stove, to cook one of the fishes he'd brought for dinner. Even there, though, everything seems to work just a little against him, and he can't find matches at first, and when he does it takes a long time for them to light up, and longer for the tinder to catch, and even longer still for the wood to join the fire, and _forever_ for the stove to actually heat up. Maybe everything is harder in winter – the cold making everything slower and worse.

Moomin prepares the fish just like Snufkin showed him and seasons liberally and then sets it on the pan – and then waits for sizzling that refuses to happen in anything like reasonable time. But it happens, eventually, and soon the kitchen fills with the smell of nice fried salmon.

The fish isn't as good as it had been when Too-ticky – or Snufkin – had made it, but it's edible enough and fills his belly and makes things feel… not so terrible. The kitchen is nice and warm now, and that at least is _wonderful_. Maybe, if this keeps happening and he fails to sleep at all, he will bring a blanket and pillows into the kitchen and keep the stove lit, and it won't be so bad.

The idea of being awake for longer is still terrible, though. Weeks and weeks.

"No, I mustn't lose hope. I still have books to check out, one of them might have a solution," Moomin says firmly, and on their own his eyes find the nook of books in kitchen, Mamma's books – cooking books and books about herbs and mushrooms and plants and, "Of course!"

Rising to his feet quickly, Moomintroll rushes to the cubby and then stops. Turning, he wipes his slightly oily palms onto a kitchen towel, making sure they're clean before respectfully taking down _the_ book. Grandma's book on house remedies. It's bound to have something about helping insomniac moomins to get back to sleep in winter!

Feeling much more hopeful, Moomintroll opens the book and then begins leafing through the pages, looking for something to help.

There is a cure for sleeping sickness, a cure for a sleeping curse, there's a cure for sleepwalking, a cure for bad dreams – Snufkin could use that one, Moomintroll thinks, and reads it through carefully… and there's a cure for sleeplessness!

"Brilliant!" Moomin sighs with relief and brings the lantern closer to read through the recipe. "Now I just have to make it." Only… it turns out the ingredients are summer ingredients – fresh plants and herbs and a whole load of chamomile. "Oh no."

Moomintroll does his best to make the recipe, regardless of the season. There are some herbs in the cellar and in Mamma's spice cabinet, and he doesn't have fresh chamomile, but there's chamomile tea, and hopefully that serves the same purpose? So he melts some snow and mixes in ingredients and all the spices, and makes a spicy, fragrant _soup_ that doesn't taste at all good, but definitely tastes like medicine. Then, having drunk a whole cup full of it, Moomin heads back to bed.

And does not sleep a wink.

* * *

Moominhouse seems to only get colder as time goes by. Moomintroll takes to sticking to the kitchen, keeping the fire going and reading Pappa's books and Mamma's grandmother's book by lantern light, and it's almost nice except for how lonely it is, how quiet. It's as though the whole world concentrates into this one single warm room, the rest of it outside kept at bay by all the snow and darkness and cold. Which, Moomin muses, it rather is.

It's so _lonely_ and so quiet, that he's tempted to bring down Pappa's gramophone to play some music, but he doesn't dare – it would make him more awake still. Better to stick with the silence for now, and to read, and to try and figure out...

"The sleeping medicine wasn't any good, but chamomile tea is good for sleeplessness. I think I've heard Mamma say that, anyway," Moomintroll murmurs, and makes some for himself to drink while he reads. He's not sure if he cares for the taste, but there's no milk for hot chocolate, and he doubts very much that coffee would help his case here. So tea it is.

Pappa's books are turning out to be a lot less interesting than Great Grandma's remedy book. There are so many things in it, and Moomintroll really has to wonder if Great Grandma really encountered all these problems – there's a remedy for someone who can't move with people watching, and another who can't stop speaking in rhymes, and for someone who sneezes themselves into next week! Great Grandma must've had a very interesting life. Or she was a witch. Probably that.

Moomin reads through the remedy for those that get untethered from linear time and begin visiting people in the future and past indiscriminately, and then turns the page to… "Potion to promote the growth of a proper winter coat," Moomin murmurs, leaning his snout into one palm, and considering his arm, where his fur stands up on end, little puffier than usual and still nowhere near enough to keep him fully warm. Winter coat – what would that even look like on a moomin?

Moomintroll imagines himself as shaggy as one of the sheep herding dogs kept by a hemulen in the town and shakes his head. "No, no, I don't need a winter coat, I need to go back to sleep!" he says firmly and turns a page – and there's a remedy for someone who's grown gills and webbed hands and feet. Moomin sighs and stares at the picture of some poor moomin in the process of turning into mermoomin.

It could be interesting, to breathe underwater, to swim with the fish, to see what they do down there, in the bottom of the ocean, in the bottom of rivers, to see what underwater world looks like… not right now, though, not when it's all cold and dark and terrible, but in spring, and summer, when it's light, and warm, and nice, and… and not so lonely.

"I wonder what Snufkin is doing," Moomin murmurs, sighing forlornly and trying to imagine the surely nicer place his best friend might be camping at right now, a place where it doesn't snow and people don't need to hibernate at all. "I hope it's warm there, wherever he is."


	2. Chapter 2

When a week has passed since he woke, Moomintroll accepts the fact that there'd be no more sleeping this winter. Well, sort of accepts. There's a great deal of feeling sorry for himself and wallowing in misery, and some crying, and he does try to wake his parents a few more times and maybe cries a little more, but that's the good thing about winter – no one is around to hear, so it's almost as if it never happens. Either way, he accepts his fate with what he would eventually call _grace_.

He also eats up all the fish he and Too-ticky caught and uses up all the firewood stored in the cellar, keeping the fire going in the kitchen, and that's not good. Having not gone outside since then, Moomin frets over the weather, over how cold it must be, how cold it would get inside if he didn't, and he needs some food besides, and, and, and… and ugh.

"Survival adventures aren't all they cracked out to be, huh," Moomintroll mutters, peering out of the window of his room, trying to gauge the temperatures outside. Winter is strange – it is warmer when it snowed and colder when it didn't, in total opposite of how it was in summer. Well, summer has warm rainy days, and winter has warmer non-snowy days, but mostly it is the opposite. It isn't snowing now, and the sky is lit up in a pale yellow glow by distant sun that refuses to rise above the mountains, and it _looks_ warmer, but looks can be deceiving.

It would be embarrassing, having to go to Too-ticky again for help and for food, but Moomintroll isn't sure what else he can do. Everyone else is asleep. Well, maybe not everyone. Hemulens don't hibernate, and he doesn't think fillyjonks do either, but – but they aren't _friends,_ and relying on strangers would be… not the best. Too-ticky, at least, hadn't seemed to mind – and Moomin had fished up a few fishes himself, and therefore it wasn't being _completely_ reliant on Too-ticky. Right?

Moomin sighs, and then squares up his courage and pushes the window open. There's no wind, which is a little better, but the air is still nippy, and immediately his ears want to curl in on themselves for warmth. But he's begun now, so there's nothing to it but to keep going – and besides, he's getting quite tired of being cooped up.

He clambers down the slippery, frozen ladder, and falls into the snow with an _oomph,_ and it's – it's soft and light, almost weightless when he waves an arm through it. Still cold, still snow, but somehow different kinds of snow.

"Suppose even snow needs a change, every now and then," Moomintroll muses, throwing a handful of the light, fluffy snow in the air and watching it float down. Feeling immensely cheered up, he turns his eyes to the direction of the beach and begins making his way over, wading a deep track into the fluffy, light snow.

Too-ticky is outside, brushing the fluffy snow off the pier with a broom. "Oh, Moomintroll. Still no dice on getting back to sleep?" she calls, waving.

"No," Moomin sighs, hurrying over, shuddering a little. "And I've read so many boring books by now that if I was ever going to sleep again, I'm sure I would've fallen asleep to the History of the Seafaring Troll. You wouldn't happen to have a fire going – it's freezing!"

"That's winter – it's always freezing," Too-ticky laughs and brushes away the last little pile of snow, sending it wafting over the frozen ocean surface. "Come along, then."

They head into the bathhouse, where the air is nice and warm. Too-ticky adds a bit of wood into the stove, and Moomin sits close to it, warming his tingling fingers and tail on the heat radiating from the metal stove.

"I have something for you," Too-ticky says, while Moomin warms up, and goes to the storage where the Ancestor had been kept. She brings out what looks like a strange shoe shelf, but of course isn't, sitting on a pair of skis. "A sled!" Too-ticky says happily.

"Right, you said – it's very nice," Moomintroll says and then, hesitantly, asks, "What's it for?"

"For sledding, of course!" Too-ticky says cheerfully, setting the sled on the floor and then sliding it back and forth with her foot. "I will show you, once you're all warmed up, if you'd like. "

"I would, very much," Moomin assures her and then, a little hesitant, says, "I'd like to do some fishing too – I ran out."

"Hmm, we can do that, yes," Too-ticky says and considers him. "So, there's no food at all in your house?"

"There's some jam and spices and a bit of flour, but –" Moomin shrugs.

"Suppose you dinnea need any winter stores, sleeping the winter away the way you do," she muses, sitting down beside him and watching the invisible shrews on the floor, smiling. "I can give you some from my stores, I have some potatoes and carrots I can spare."

"That would be wonderful, though I can manage with just the fish too, if you don't mind me butting in on your fishing spot again," Moomin says, guiltily. "I'd fish by the river, but it's all frozen up."

"I should think so – the water in that river comes from the mountains, and the mountains are all frozen up too," Too-ticky chuckles. "No worries, we can fish some – but I will ask around too. There's a long time to go until spring, after all."

Moomin sighs. He's sort of accepted the knowledge that he'd be awake until then, but… it still seems _impossible_. "What do you do during winter, Too-ticky? What do people do when everything's all frozen up?"

"Whatever they don't do during summer, I suppose. My sister knits most winter, and embroiders, and sews," Too-ticky muses. "I fish and explore the winter and help others and skate and ski. I know a hemulen in town that spends most winter whittling and Mrs. Fillyjonk makes lace and crochets... I suppose we do whatever we can to keep ourselves busy."

Whittling – that could be something Moomintroll could do. "And I suppose they have enough food and firewood and such that they don't need to go outside much?" he muses, a little forlornly.

"That's the idea with winter stores, yes," Too-ticky says and gives him a knowing look. "Out of wood, too, are you?"

Moomintroll sighs and nods, pulling his knees up. "We don't need that much, during summer, so there wasn't much in the stores," he mumbles. "It's almost all gone now."

"Well, it seems we have something to do today, then," Too-ticky says, cheerful. "We'll fish and then we will go cut down some trees. And perhaps we can do some winter foraging while we're at it, and add to your stores."

"There's forage you can do in winter?" Moomintroll asks, surprised. "But it's so cold, and there's snow everywhere, surely nothing grows?"

"Nothing does, but that doesn't mean things aren't still there. There's still trees, and you can find nuts and seeds and sometimes dried up plants will stick out from under the snow and some of them are perfectly edible," Too-ticky shrugs. "You never know, until you go out to look. Shall we go fish you up some dinner, first?"

* * *

After they've spent some time fishing – with Too-ticky promising to do some extra fishing and store up some for Moomin – they head to the forest where Too-ticky helps Moomin figure out how to forage. Most of the foraging is about finding firefood, collecting fallen branches into Moomintroll's new sled. Too-ticky also shows him good trees to try and cut down – old threes, dead standing ones.

"Even trees grow old and die," she says, patting the dry silvery bark of an old pinetree. "Shame to cut a specimen like this – good building wood, this – but it will be drier than life trees, and will be useful for you quicker. Won't have to dry it for so long."

"If it's such a good tree, we better leave it," Moomintroll says, though mostly because it's so _big_ and he can't think of a conceivable way they could get it to the Moominhouse. They have an axe and a saw, but getting this tree down would be still a whole day's work. "Let's try something smaller."

By the time the skies start to turn dark and Moomin is losing the feeling in his fingers and toes, he has a sled full of firewood that might keep him going for another week, if he was sparing.

"You have an axe and a saw at the Moominhouse, right?" Too-ticky asks. "Good, you should be able to get some firewood on your own then."

Moomintroll sighs, but nods – it would be hard work, and lonely besides, but he couldn't be bothering Too-ticky all the time. "Thank you for helping me," he says. "I don't know what I would've done if you weren't there."

"Pishposh, you would've figured something out. I'm sure that Pappa of yours has books on survival and such," Too-ticky says, looking pleased. "But I'm happy to help. Now, once you get home, set these close to the stove so they dry faster, otherwise they will never light up."

"I will, thank you, Too-ticky."

Dragging the sled back home loaded up with wood is hard work, but easier than it would've been to carry the wood, Moomintroll muses, already planning a future wood collecting and foraging trips. Once it got a little warmer, though – it was a warmer day today, and he's still freezing his tail off!

"Maybe I should look into that winter coat potion, after all," Moomintroll sighs, and wonders how many weeks it actually is until spring.

* * *

The potion to promote the growth of a proper winter coat is, unlike the sleeping potion, perfectly feasible to make during winter. All the ingredients are things he can still forage – sprigs and bark of various trees, the lichen growing on spruce, the topmost needles of a pine and a whole lot of seeds. Moomin collects the ingredients into a shoulder bag while collecting some more fire wood from the forest around the Moominhouse, filling the bag near to the brim with pinecones and twigs. Then, with a sled full of cut off branches and twigs for the stove, he heads back, feeling a little more accomplished with his winter survival.

"I wonder if this is how it is for Snufkin," he murmurs, while cutting and piling up the firewood into the kitchen to dry, and then spreading out his foraging on the kitchen table. "He must collect firewood from the forest too, all the time, and forage for food. I knew that, of course, I even helped him do it, but…"

But in summer it was a fun game you could do or not as you liked. Snufkin had never said no to the help, always grateful for an armful of firewood for his camp side, or extra mushrooms they'd picked up from the forest… but it wasn't _necessary_ , then, not for Moomintroll or for his friends. It was just a bit of fun, another game, which they could do at their whim. Now, with the cold only kept at bay with regular application of firefood, and his dinners having grown meagre and thin and altogether too fishy… it's different.

Is that why Snufkin fishes so much? Obviously he enjoys it, everyone knows how much Snufkin enjoys fishing, but… it's not just something he does for the fun of it, is it? Fishing is a matter of survival too, for Snufkin – it's where he gets his _dinner_. If he stopped fishing…

Moomintroll frowns to himself, piling the pinecones together and setting the twigs and sprigs and other things aside, wondering. Snufkin had never seemed to mind, when his friends lost interest in collecting nuts or wild vegetables or whatever else they were collecting in the forest, usually shrugging off their newest suggested activities and going back to foraging by himself. It had always felt like dismissal, when Snufkin refused to join them in a different game, just another case of Snufkin getting too much of company and deciding to strike out on his own for a bit, but now…

Now Moomin can't help but wonder if they all seemed terribly childish, maybe even churlish, when they just willy-nilly decided to do something else. Was it ever a game for Snufkin? Moomin can only hope they'd at least been more helpful than hindrance to him, as he foraged for food and herbs and other things.

Wondering what Snufkin would think of him now, Moomintroll picks the seeds out of the pinecones with a toothpick. He's not doing well, he knows that – the whole thing still seems so _impossible_ to him. But he's doing it. Week and more he's been asleep with no one but Too-ticky for help, and he's _managing_. By the time spring came, who knows. Maybe he'd be an expert in winter survival!

He just wishes it wasn't so terribly lonely.

It takes him an hour and more to pick out all the seeds, and to strip the bark of the various birch and willow and ash sprigs, and to strip the needles of the pine branches. The recipe for the winter coat growth is very particular in which order and how the ingredients needed to be crushed and diced and grind and mixed, and Moomin follows the recipe as carefully as he can. It's not like there's much else to do, after all.

He boils the bark into murky green tea, runs it through a strainer, before turning to crush the seeds and the needles into dry green paste. By the time he has the whole mixture slowly simmering over the stove, the whole kitchen smells like the woods, like evergreen trees and old forest, and little bit like winter too – like the oldest, thickest tree with bushiest of branches, the sort that could be piled up with tons and tons of snow, and would not even bend. It's a wild, spicy smell that stings the nose and makes breathing feel _fresh_.

It tastes absolutely _foul_ though.

* * *

"Oh," Moomin murmurs, eying himself in the reflection. "Oh _dear_."

He looks like a haystack. His coat had grown, and it had grown in _abundance_. He looks like a huge dandelion puff, with thick white fur sticking everywhere, so long it's covering his eyes. It's even growing out of his _ears_ which would be terribly embarrassing, if the ears themselves hadn't been covered in long thick whips of fur, making them seem three times as large as they really are! And his tail – oh, his tail. It drags on the floor, the fur so thick that he could've used it for a duster!

He must've done the recipe stronger than he meant to. There had been no total measurements, just ratios, and in the end he'd drank two whole cups of the thick, piney stuff. Perhaps one glass could've been enough, after all. Oh boy.

"Well," Moomintroll says, spreading eying his paw and plucking at the fur growing between his fingers in big tufts. His feet look a little like they're covered in socks, he can barely even see his toes anymore. "I certainly won't be cold now!"

It's some comfort at least, and, well. It was winter. No one would be around to see.

* * *

Too-ticky takes one look at him, and bursts into delighted giggles. "Well!" she chuckles. "I was going to offer you a coat, but I see you've grown your own! And very fine coat it is, too!"

"Well, thank you," Moomintroll says modestly, carding his fingers through the fur on his forehead, trying to get it off his eyes. "I worked hard on it."

"You look a little like your ancestor," Too-Ticky comments, tilting her head consideringly. "Only white. And somehow hairier. Old ancestry pushing through, huh?"

Moomin sighs. He looks terrible, he knows. The fur sticks everywhere, and it's already getting tangled in places, like behind his knees and in his armpits. He'd not quite yet resorted to brushing it out, but if it decided to be easily tangled, he supposes he must, eventually.

But it really is very warm, so he minds it a lot less than he otherwise might've.

Too-ticky chuckles some more and then invites him to fish, asking about how he came about such a fine coat. Moomintroll tells her the whole tale, of finding the recipe and making use of it, and how the coat grew overnight. "Great Grandma's recipes are potent," he muses. "I lost all the hair on my tail once, and Mamma gave me just a spoonful of Great Grandma's concoction and my tail came back over night – only it was golden!"

And oh, thinking about it now he's lucky that his winter coat didn't decide to become golden, too, that would have been twice as embarrassing.

"I suppose you're settled to staying awake all winter, then?" Too-ticky asks, as they settle down under the ice to fish.

"I suppose I am," Moomin sighs, leaning his snout to his palm while peering into the pitch black water. "Since I went and grew a winter coat and everything. I just don't know what I will _do_ for the rest of the winter – there's only so many books I can read and I think I've already read the best ones in Pappa's bookshelves." He still had plenty of Great Grandma's recipes and remedies to read, though. That special book turned out very long – actually, Moomintroll isn't entirely sure it even has an end.

But even magical remedies get tiresome to read, after a while.

"Sometimes it's fine doing nothing at all," Too-ticky comments.

"But it's _boring_ to not do something," Moomintroll sighs. "I don't know how to sit still and just… not do anything."

Too-ticky arches a brow at that, tucking her fishing pole between some rocks and leaning back. "Well, with your very fine winter coat, you don't need to stay inside all the time, now," she comments, and offers him no solutions to boredom, which is a bit of a disappointment, but Moomintroll isn't sure he expected her to, anyway. She'd already done so much.

"Sometimes," she says as they fish. "Being alone and doing nothing at all can be a wonderful thing."

Moomintroll thinks of Snufkin, for whom it probably really is the most wonderful thing, and sighs. Well, there were weeks and weeks of winter left still. He might as well see what the fuss was about.

* * *

It's so quiet. Once he stops trying to _do_ things and just walks in the snowy forests for no other reason except to walk in the forest, it strikes him out of nowhere. It's so completely, totally _silent_. No wind, no rain, no rustle of leaves, no signing of birds, no rippling water, nothing.

Just a complete stillness of the late winter everything and the frozen trees all around him, snow piled up all around them and heavy on their branches. The pines and spruces droop down under the weight and when you look at the birches and ashes and oaks just _so_ it looks they have canopy of white leaves all around, but of course they don't. it's just frost, and it's completely _still_.

Moomintroll sits down on a snow covered tree stump, listening very hard – and there's nothing at all to be heard. Just a soft, muffled silence. Warm in his thick new winter coat, he breathes in the cold air and the quiet, and where before both had seemed so _hard_ and unforgiving before, there's something soft about it. Everything around him is asleep, from the animals in their hibernation and the trees in their winter dress, with the ground so far below, covered in snow. It's as though the whole world has pulled on a thick blanket and settled down for a nice long nap.

It's still lonely, but he's getting used to that, now, and even though it still brings a tear to his eye every now and then, he knows crying won't make the spring come any faster. It never has.

Carding his fingers through the tangled hair of his tail, Moomin wonders if Snufkin has ever seen a winter like this. He always goes to the south, heading for warmer climates when it gets so cold up in the north, so… perhaps not. Moomintroll knows Snufkin has never hibernated, though he might be able to, it just was not his nature to do so. Moomin doesn't think Snufkin likes the cold, with how warmly he dresses up even during the warmest seasons.

Snow is beginning to drift slowly down from the increasingly dark skies above, and the distant mountains grow faint and blurry as the flurries come down. It somehow makes everything even more quiet – where rain is noise, snow is the opposite. Unless it's windy, snow eats away at sound, muffling everything.

It's… strangely lovely, in its own, cold way. Soft.

Moomintroll looks up as he hears the distant humming of the Lady of the Cold, and then gets up. Time to head inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fluffy.


	3. Chapter 3

Moomin goes sledding. It's by far the most fun he's so far had in winter, going down hills on Too-ticky's sled, often ending head first in a snow pile. Even if it takes three times as long to climb up a hill than it is to down it, it's worth it for that one moment of thrill when he's going faster than he's gone maybe ever, the thrill of _will I fall head first this time_ and the near misses with trees and the moments he just goes up in the air only to come down in a _thump_! It's great.

He just wishes he had someone to share it with – it would surely be twice as much fun with some company. Little My would go absolutely wild for it, he thinks. Sniff would like it too, though it would probably scare him more than excite him. Snorkmaiden, once she got over the indignity of toppling over so many times… Snufkin…

Sitting on top of his sled in the snowy hill, Moomintroll looks over the valley and sighs. The area around the Moominhouse is covered in his tracks now – he's worn a path into the snow from his earlier firewood fetching, and there's the trails left behind by the sled. It looks lived in and busy in a way that just makes him feel the sadder – because he knows that for all that it looks like a whole troop of people had been there, it was just him, really, being very busy.

Maybe he should visit someone. Too-ticky had headed off for a bit, to see her sister, but there are others still awake. Mrs. Fillyjonk doesn't sleep, and neither do any of the hemulens, he could maybe pop in for a tea. They'd be surprised to see him like this, all fuzzy, he doesn't think Mrs. Fillyjonk would approve – but it would certainly give them something to talk about!

Moomin sighs, his shoulder slumping. Resorting to Mrs. Fillyyonk and hemulens for company. What's he come to?

"I wish I had a clock that told me how many days it was still until spring," Moomin murmurs, scratching at his winter coat and then making a face as his fingers get tangled on it. There's snow stuck in the long tufts, and it's all tangled up. "Ugh. I guess it's time for a brush up."

With another, heavier sigh he takes the rope tied to his sled and then begins making his way back to the house. It would be nice if it wasn't on top of a hill, that way he could sled right up to it, just, _whee_ and he's home. But he supposes being able to sled down away from it is pretty fun too – if he does it right, he only needs to get up to drag the sled a twice, on his way to the beach.

And he has to admit, having to climb the snowy hill makes getting inside where it's nice and warm feel like just the right sort of award.

The fire has burned low inside, but Moomintroll doesn't bother adding any wood to it – with the winter coat, he doesn't need it to be so warm anymore. Setting the sled down and plucking the snow stuck to his coat, he considers himself in the lantern light. The hair is maybe a little… matted here and there. Oh boy.

"Right. I do need a brush," he says dejectedly and then considers. Do they _have_ a hairbrush in the house? Snorkmaiden would have one, of course, and she sometimes stays in the Moominhouse, but… Well, nothing to it but to look.

Moomintroll spends some half an hour looking, and there is no brush. Not in the guest room, not the room Snorkmaiden stays at, not in the kitchen, nowhere. There is a _cleaning_ brush which Mamma uses to polish the floors sometimes, and there's a wire brush for pipes which is dirty and scratchy, and then there's a brush used to clean up the chimney, but… no _hair_ brush. They don't even have a comb. Not that he can find one anyway.

And yet he could _swear_ they had one…

"Hey Mamma," Moomintroll says quietly, peeking into his parent's bedroom. "Would you mind if I looked into your dresser, just a little bit?"

The only answer he gets is their snoring, which he takes as an affirmative. Mamma wouldn't want him to be an entangled mess, anyway, she'd want to brush his coat right away. So, his ears slanted back to block out the snoring, Moomin goes to check the dresser. There's not much there, really – some jewellery Mamma never wears, some make up he's never seen her put on, some silk flowers and a scarf… no brushes and no combs.

And yet Moomintroll is pretty sure Mamma had brushed his tail more than once. With both a brush _and_ a comb. "Hmm," he hums, thinking about it. Where did she get them from… oh.

His eyes slid towards the bed, and to the handbag hanging from the bedpost. Of course – where else would it be?

Walking up to the bed makes him feel terrible in a way he can't put into words. He's been in their bedroom plenty of times since waking up, and it's always sort of _terrible_ , to stand there, all awake, while they sleep, knowing that nothing he does short of something really terrible would wake him. Somehow, even though they're _right there_ , being in their bedroom gives him the loneliest feeling,

"I hope you don't mind," Moomintroll mumbles and then takes the handbag down. "I'll just have a quick look…"

He isn't surprised when the first thing he reaches for in the handbag is the very brush he'd been looking for. That's just how Mamma's handbag is – the first thing you reach for is the first thing you get. He isn't surprised when the next one is a comb. What he is surprised is that his fingers find something _else_ too, a leathery strap attached to a long handle of something. Thinking it might be another brush, maybe even one intended for long coats like his, Moomin pulls… and pulls, and pulls.

It's not a brush. It's a long stick with a sharp point at the end.

"Um," Moomin says, glancing towards Mamma's sleeping form and then reaching for the handbag again. The fourth thing is a long stick just like the first one, with a strap at the handle and sharp point at the end. Strange, he thinks, and teaches again – and this time he gets something else, something he thinks at first is a piece of wood, a board of some kind, but no.

"… skis?" Moomintroll mutters, once all four pieces of the set are out, laid against the bed frame. He'd seen Too-ticky use them – she'd been meaning to teach him, but he'd been fine with his sled. "Mamma, why do you have skis in your handbag?" he asks dubiously, considering the thing. They're fine looking skis too. Then, making a face, Moomintroll asks, " _How_ do you have skis in your handbag?"

Mamma, of course, doesn't answer – and neither does the handbag, which has snapped it's lock shut and now sits on the floor, no worse for wear for his rummaging. Moomintroll eyes it suspiciously for a moment and then shakes his head and hangs it back on the bed poster, before gathering the brushes and the skis.

Well. He had gotten a little tired of just sledding. Maybe skiing would add some variety.

First things first, Moomin thinks and heads back down to the kitchen, where it's warmer. It's time to get the tangles out of his coat.

It's a greater ordeal than he'd expected. There are a lot of tangles, in nearly all his joints and all around his feet and even at the bottom of his belly. It's an exercise of stretchiness to get at them all, and then an exercise in durability to manage to untangle them. Moomin suspects his winter coat is much softer than the Ancestor's, and that's why it tangles – when it gets wet, it gets clingy. The Ancestor's coat felt like it just got pricklier.

"Well, mine is _prettier_ ," Moomin huffs while easing the comb through what was a matted bit of hair under his armpit. It hurts a little, but now that it's all smooth, it feels much better than before. "I suppose I should be brushing my hair more often, huh?" he says and then sighs. "Oh, brother, I sound like Snorkmaiden. Is that why she does it, does her hair get tangled like this? I should've been more sympathetic."

The coat is quite nice once it's all smooth, though, so there is that. He is left with a lot of loose hair, though, little white puffs of it on the floor, rolling around with the draft. Moomin watches them move around for a moment and then gathers them with a dustpan and throws the whole lot into the stove.

…It will be the very last time he does that, though. By Groke, the smell!

* * *

Skiing goes about as well as sledding had, at first. There's a lot of fumbling, many falls, one time his skis go the complete wrong away around and he ends up face planting into the snow more than once. But once he gets the hang of going down a hill without falling over, it's a little like sledding, only he can _keep going_ afterwards, pushing himself forward with the ski poles.

Moomintroll thinks he still prefers sledding, though. At least with sledding if he fell over, he fell _off_ the sled. With skis he ends up tangled in them more often than not.

"Ahoy there!" a voice calls, as Moomintroll comes down another hill, the voice almost ending him tipping over again. It's a hemulen, also on skis, waving a pole at him. "Lovely day, isn't it!"

Moomintroll must've gone farther than he realised, to run into someone else – Moominvalley is a bit far off the beaten path, but he can see houses now, lights, all buried in snow but with smoke trails rising from hidden chimneys. He's close to the town, now.

"It is a lovely day!" Moomin agrees, and they ski towards each other. "Hello."

"Hello there, uh – is that a moomin under there?" the hemulen asks, surprised. "My, I've never seen a moomin so hairy!"

"It's my winter coat – and it's me, Moomintroll! You've seen me at the Midsummer party!" Moomin says quickly and points his skipole towards Moominvalley. "You know where I live, it's right there!"

"Oh, Moomintroll? I thought your lot all slept through the winter, hibernating," the hemulen says, surprised. "What are you doing up? Are your parents up?"

"No, they're still asleep, and I think they will be until spring. I just woke up, two weeks ago, and couldn't go back to sleep," Moomintroll says with a shrug.

"Well, I'll be," the hemulen says, fascinated. "That must've been quite the adjustment. How are you liking winter so far?"

"Well. It's cold," Moomintroll says slowly, thoughtfully, sliding one ski back and forth and biting his tongue on all the complaints he has. "But it's not so bad with my new winter coat. And I am a little tired of eating fish, but it's better than pine needles."

"Oh, my, that's right, you wouldn't have any winter stores, would you, what with the way you sleep through the winter, you would have no cause to have any…" the hemulen says, scratching at his long snout. "Tell you what, come with me, and I'll see what we have we can spare from our cellar."

"Oh, really, would you? That'd be wonderful, though I'd hate to be a bother," Moomin says quickly. "Maybe I can do something in return for it?"

"Hmm, maybe you can, at that," the hemulen muses and then waves at him to follow. "You can help me shovel the snow off the lawn as payment. Come on now."

They ski together back to the hemulen's home, which is almost as much covered in snow as the Moominhouse, all but buried in it. The front of it's all clear, though, with spaces opened for people to move between the front door and the cellar and the shed where the hemulen family keep their firewood - of which they have an enviable amount, Moomintroll thinks.

While Moomintroll takes a shovel and helps clear the front of the house some more, the hemulen heads inside to talk to his wife, and then the pair of them head to the cellar with a big sack, coming back with it full of potatoes and onions and carrots and beets and other things.

"It's not much, dear, but it should the you over for a while," the hemulen's wife says. "Poor dear all alone in winter time, or must've been terribly scary for you!"

"Not as scary as all that," Moomintroll says, pretending he hadn't been crying as much at night as he had, that first terrible week. "And I've been fishing with Too-ticky and I know how to forage a little in winter now, so I've been alright."

They fuss over him a little, asking about whether the Moominhouse was very cold and if he had running water - he didn't, Pappa had turned the water off in autumn to keep the pipes from bursting - and if he had firewood. Moomintroll answers that it wasn't so cold anymore, he stuck to the kitchen, he could always melt snow for water and he'd been collecting firewood from the forest so he was alright. Just bored of fish, that's all.

"You poor thing, you poor thing," the hemulen's wife croons. "You must come to us if you ever need any help or get sick or run out of food or get scared or – "

Moomin tries not to bristle at it – he knows they only mean well – but he thinks he'd been doing rather well for himself. With some help from Too-ticky, maybe, but he wasn't completely helpless! "Thank you, but I think I will be alright," he says firmly.

Getting back home with a big sack of food is not all that much fun, even on skis – or rather, especially on skis. While going down the hills is nice and swift, going up them carrying all that stuff is a cumbersome affair, making him wish he had his sled with him. It would've been easier to drag the good on top of it on the skis, than carrying the sack, and the poles and in some cases the skis too, when dredging up a hill.

"I guess this is why Mamma carries her skis in a handbag," Moomin huffs and then pauses to take a deep breath, overlooking Moominvalley. Not a long way to go anymore, and then he could have some roast potatoes and fried fish with onions. Just as soon as he cooked them, anyway. Which – oh, he'd never cooked roast potatoes before. Hopefully Mamma's cooking books had recipes for them.

"Oh, life was so much easier when Mamma and Pappa were awake…"

* * *

Moomintroll has whittled seven different bark boats and is starting to think that maybe there's starting to be more than enough of them. Admittedly, he's getting better at it, and the last one has three masts and sails woven from silver lichen and he thinks it's quite fine… but it's not like there will be much use for them until spring came. The only water that is still _water_ and not ice was the water under the ice, and wind didn't blow there, so…

Sighing, he sets the last bark boat to the window sill and then considers the row of them, how each new one was an improvement over the last one. "I should make other things. Sensible things, like cups and spoons," he muses, though he can't say making a spoon seems all that exciting. They have spoons aplenty, and ladles and scoops, and – and none of them would be as much fun to make as bark boats. And yet making toys isn't that much fun either, with no one to play with them. Like bark boats, they need the right time – and the right people – to be fun, otherwise they just make you feel awkward and sad.

Sighing again, Moomintroll leans back until he's lying on the warm floor beside the stove, stretching out his paws and humming. Snufkin whittles too, sometimes. He whittles things like cork poppers and new fishing poles and every time he comes to Moominvalley he finds and cleans new poles for his tent, too. Sometimes, if he's particularly bored, he might put together a crab trap. Sensible things – though Snufkin's known to make a bark boat or two, every now and then. What else he makes – oh!

Bird houses!

Moomin shoots up, excited – and then remembers. There's almost no birds in Moominvalley right now, most of them have gone to south like Snufkin. Not all of them, though, there's some that stuck around, all puffed up with thicker feather coats, like little balls with wings. Maybe they could use houses?

"What do birds eat in winter?" Moomintroll wonders out loud and then remembers – there's a book on birds in Pappa's study. It would surely know.

Moomin fetches the book, taking some of the others he'd been reading back, and then settles by the stove to read. There's not much in the book about birds in winter time, just that there are some that migrate to the south, and some that don't, and the ones that do stay get thicker coats and eat seeds and nuts and buds of slumbering trees. And that some people feed them in winter.

Moomin traces his finger over the image of a bird feeder, and thinks it's rather marvellous. Neither sensible enough to be boring, nor childish enough to be useless. A bird feeder – just the sort of thing for a bored moomin to whittle in quiet winter nights.

"And then I can fill it with pine seeds and the like," Moomin says, determined, and stands up. "Right, right! I'll get to it right now!"

It will take him a few attempts to make a bird feeder that looks actually nice, and few more before he gets the hang of the intended mechanism of having reservoir of food for the birds without having it all out in the open at once. Like with the bark boats, practice makes perfect. Not that he thinks the birds will mind.

Having seven bird feeders, even if some of them are a little lopsided, is clearly better than having none.

Moomin sets them around the house, sticking the best one right on top where Snufkin usually sets his tent, filling the reservoir with nuts and seeds and feeling enormously pleased about the whole thing. He thinks Snufkin would appreciate it too, probably. He would certainly enjoy having more birds near his campsite, filling the air with their song. That is… if birds ever came to the feeders. So far there had been none.

Well, while waiting he could make a few bird houses, just in case any came by, and found themselves in need of a house.


	4. Chapter 4

Bit by bit, Moomintroll gets used to being by himself in the silence. He's not sure it's he _likes_ it, if he will _ever_ like it – every night the loneliness presses in like a weight, making him feel just how alone he really is… but there are increasingly more and more times when he just, sort of... goes with it. There's not much else to do, after all, and you can only feel sorry for yourself for so long before it becomes tiresome.

So, he collects the wood from the forest, chops it up in the cellar, stacks it up in the kitchen to dry. He goes ice fishing every now and then, sometimes with Too-ticky, sometimes by himself. He skis through the forests collecting whatever he can use into his by now rather raggedy shoulder bag. And it's… alright.

The wish to share it all with someone never goes away, though – someone other than Too-ticky, anyway, because she's already here and _knows_. Moominvalley looks so different still, so alien and quiet and beautiful – no one who sleeps winter sleep would believe it! The way the snow piles on so thick, the way everything glimmers like the whole world is covered in diamonds on particularly cold days, and how everything goes so, so quiet when it snows, how all sounds get softly muffled…

Moomin thinks Snufkin would like it, if he could stand the cold. Not that Moomintroll would ever ask Snufkin to _stay_ when he didn't want to – not again, anyway – but maybe Snufkin could get a nice thick winter coat too…?

Sighing, Moomintroll leans on his ski poles, watching as the sun begins to shine through the snowy trees, casting vivid streaks of light onto as of yet untouched snow. It's a wistful sigh this time, not a forlorn one, and he thinks that's probably an improvement. Wistful for things that wouldn't be, without being fully sad. Wistful for spring. 

He doesn't think it's far away now – days are getting longer now, and _brighter_. You wouldn't think that dark, dark winter suddenly could get so bright, but it _does._ As the sun finally rises above the mountains and shines upon all the perfectly white snow, it turns the valley blindingly bright.

Nights are still cold and dark, but at night he stays inside by the stove, whittling away or reading, and now it feels a little less like being trapped indoors and a little more like taking a well-earned break from all the wintertime wandering. Waiting isn't so unfathomable a chore anymore – it just is what it is.

Stretching his arms out and humming, Moomintroll sets his snout towards the sun and begins making his way through the snowy forest, humming as he goes – and then he feels it.

A chill beyond chill creeping in through the trees, as clouds cover the sun, plunging the forest into sudden, cold shadow.

Hesitating, Moomintroll stops to listen – but it's not the Lady of the Cold. It's far too early in the day for her to come out, anyway, and it was much too warm too, before this unnatural chill crept in. And – and he thinks he knows this particular chill.

Shuddering even in his thick winter coat, Moomin turns his skis back. "Enough skiing for this morning,* he murmurs. "Time to head inside."

* * *

The chill lingers around the Moominhouse all day and scares away the birds, sending frosty ferns growing in the window panes again while Moomintroll peers outside from the second floor windows, trying to spot the source.

It can only be the Groke. She'd been gone for so long that Moomin was sure she'd left for South too, chasing warmer air and brighter sun, and perhaps she had – and now she's returned to haunt him. Oh, why did she have to come, just when he'd begun making his peace with winter?

Moomintroll holds vigil by the window all evening, with all the lights doused just in case and only the fire in the kitchen stove still burning. The unnatural chill lingers well into the night, by which time it gets so cold that he eventually retreats back to the kitchen, hidden by the wall of snow that surrounds Moominhouse at all sides. There he nervously brushes his coat all night, too fidgety for whittling, and keeps imagining the Groke shuffling around the house, wearing icy trails into the soft snow.

That night, the shadows inside the house seem darker and deeper than ever before, and Moomintroll goes to check up on his parents three separate times, just to make sure everything is alright. They're still asleep, none the wiser to the chill creeping in through windows, and Moomintroll wishes terribly he could be sleeping with them and none the wiser too.

But eventually the Lady of the Cold begins singing outside, and the Groke's more choking chill passes. Moomin still stays vigilant and anxious, checking the windows, just to be sure.

* * *

The first thing next morning, Moomin heads for the beach, to see Too-ticky. She's not at the bathhouse – though something else is. Right there, on the snowy beach, there's a great white horse, taller than Moomin by a great deal, taller even than the Mymble! It has a tail like a broom and mane like ropes, which is a little strange, until Moomintroll realises it's made of snow.

"What on earth…?" Moomin wonders, walking around the incredible snowy beast. "Did Too-ticky make this?"

It's certainly impressive, but – why?

Too-ticky emerges from the fishing hole not much after, carrying with her a bucket of water. "Hey there, Moomintroll – are you here to fish?"

"Good morning. No, but I wouldn't mind taking back something," Moomintroll says and motions to the snow horse. "Did you make this, Too-ticky?"

"I did," Too-ticky says and takes a long-handled ladle, using it to splash the snow horse with water. "It's for the Lady of the Cold."

"Oh?" Moomin asks unsurely. "Isn't it a little small for her?"

Too-ticky chuckles. "She's never mind before."

"You've made one before?"

"Every year since I came here, when the winter days begin getting longer and warmer," Too-ticky agrees, splashing more water onto the snow horse. "One day soon the Lady of the Cold will leave the area for the north, and all the better for her to have a ride when she leaves, isn't it?"

Moomintroll, who'd thought they _were_ in the north already, hums noncommittally in answer. "Why are you watering it?"

"So that it will freeze and harden – soft snow like this will just break," Too-ticky says and pats the horse's side. "She has a long way to go, and she's going to need a strong steed to carry her."

"Ah," Moomintroll says, considering the horse. "Can I help?"

Together they carry bucket after bucket to the horse, coating the horse all over with water. As they work, Moomin asks Too-ticky what she knows about the Groke, if she knows the Groke is back.

"The Groke never really leaves, only chases after different things," Too-ticky says sadly. "Fleeting warmth and nice things and things one can't possess, like flickering lantern lights and content feelings."

"Content feelings?" Moomin asks.

"Mmhmm," Too-ticky agrees and gives him a look. "I think you might be becoming content with winter now – and that's when doubt and fear best like to strike. When you're just about becoming sure of things, that's when it hits the hardest."

Moomin blinks at that, surprised. He'd never thought of it that way. "Is – is there a way to send the Groke away?"

Too-ticky gives him a look, knowing and a little pointed, as though it's a silly question. "How do you ever banish fear?" she asks and shrugs. "I'll head inside to warm up a little," she says in a sort of half dismissal. "And then we can fish."

"Oh. Alright. Say hello to the invisible shrews for me," Moomintroll says faintly and then stands there, considering the ice horse and thinking about the Groke, chasing lanterns out to the sea. It'd been a clever trick, he'd thought, a neat little misdirection…

Maybe it'd been just a distraction, though. Maybe that's all it ever was – both the Groke and sending the Groke away.

Too-ticky comes back with a pair of fishing rods, and together they head under the ice for a spot of fishing. They don't talk much as they do, Moomintroll still thinking about the Groke, and about fear and uncertainly and contentment.

Is that what he was feeling about winter now? It wasn't happiness, and he still didn't think winter was his favourite – spring was, followed by summer. But maybe it wasn't his least favourite either. That spot was reserved by autumn, which looked nice but often felt terrible. Especially when Snufkin left early, which he sometimes did.

"That's a heavy sigh," Too-ticky comments. "Thinking about spring, are you?"

"That obvious, huh?" Moomin asks and shakes his head. "It's right around the corner now, surely?"

Too-ticky chuckles, reeling in her fishing line and casting it farther. "I'm afraid not – there's another month to go. But the rest of the winter is nicer, with longer and warmer days, you can spend time outside more, enjoying the snow."

"I already enjoy the snow about as much as I think I can bear," Moomin muses. "I've learned to sled and ski and winter forage, and I've whittled so many bird houses that there won't be a homeless bird in the valley come spring. What else is there?"

"Skating, perhaps?" Too-ticky suggests and chuckles again. "Once the Lady of the Cold leaves you can camp outside safely and build things from snow, like the snow horse I made, and that can be a great deal of fun. You'll see – soon the valley will be abuzz with activity."

"Hmm," Moomin hums, thinking about it. "It does sound nice, I suppose. But I still feel like I should be doing _more._ "

"More what?"

"I don't know. Just more," Moomin says and sighs. "Every spring, when Snufkin comes back, he has a great deal of new stories and a new spring song and other songs besides – I've only made bark boats and bird houses. I've accomplished nothing."

"Bark boats and bird houses aren't nothing," Too-ticky says, and gives him a knowing look. "But I suppose it's a different accomplishment you have in mind."

Moomin hums in agreement, and then lets out a yelp of excitement as he gets a bite on his fishing rod. It's a moment's work to reel the fish in and get it into the awaiting bucket, during which time they don't talk much.

Shaking the water from his fingers, Moomintroll baits his hook again and casts the line. "Since I've been awake it feels like I should… make something for spring, like Snufkin does," Moomin admits. "But I'm not much of a musician, and I wouldn't want to butt in on Snufkin's territory anyway."

"Not sure he'd agree with _having_ a territory," Too-ticky chuckles. "But I see what you are after. You want to make a spring gift."

"I suppose," Moomin agrees.

"And you can't just whittle something?"

"Well, I can't think of anything that would be splendid enough without also being terribly big and heavy," Moomin admits. "And probably hard to carry around."

Too-ticky hums. "How about a nice coffee cup, made from a knot in a tree branch?"

Moomintroll sighs. "I tried making one, but I couldn't carve the inside right at all."

They talk about it more, until there's enough fish in the bucket to share between themselves, and the sky above the ice starts getting dark and cold again. Tying the fish onto a branch, Moomintroll prepares to head back home while Too-ticky heads inside, and then he sees her.

The Groke is standing by the snow horse, eyeing it wistfully.

"You – you can't have it. It's for the Lady of the Cold," Moomin says, braver than he feels. "And it isn't ready, besides – you'll just break it."

The Groke groans as she turns and moans as she looks at him, and in an instant all the hair on Moomintroll's body is standing on end. Her stare is, as always, chilling.

"It's for the Lady of the Cold," Moomin says again, weaker. "It's not for you."

The Groke lets out a heavy, mournful moan at that, and then turns away, leaving behind her a shiny trail of polished ice. She also leaves the snow horse frozen completely solid – easily hard enough for the Lady of the Cold to ride.

* * *

Brushing his itching coat and watching the little tufts of while fuzz flitter about the floor, Moomintroll thinks about the spring and the departure of the Lady of the Cold and the Groke too. He wonders about how Too-ticky ended up making snow horses for the Lady of the Cold, what it might've been like when she made the first one, and why she made it. Was it like her gift of winter, the way Snufkin made his spring song every year?

Gathering the loose white fuzz into a pillow case he's been using for the purpose, Moomintroll thinks of Groke chasing lanterns out into the open sea and how they were always bound to burn out, if the Groke herself didn't smother them with her chill – and how sad it had seemed, that she could never actually have what she so obviously yearned for. And how terrible it would be if she turned out to be scared of the dark!

Moomintroll teeters on the edge of sympathy and then tips over, and heads for the cellar, where he has some longer pieces of wood, waiting to thaw so that he could split them for firewood. He had an idea for a winter gift – and it needs a long handle.

That evening, while he whittles away, the Lady of the Cold takes her leave of the valley, the clip and clop of frozen hooves sounding through the mountains as she rides in the coldest air currents. The following night it is very quiet, as Moomin heads out with his finished winter gift held in both hands. The forest is absolutely still, as though the whole world is holding its breath as the Lady of the Cold heads for North.

The valley feels lesser for it, as though the spirit that made the winter feel like a living beast had fled, leaving behind a thing doomed to wither – but it feels lighter too, open for new things, open eventually for spring. When wind finally picks up, it blows from the south, speeding the winter's Lady along on her journey.

Gripping his gift tighter, Moomintroll looks around and then calls, "Groke? Are-are you here still? I have a gift for you!"

Very few are those who call for the Groke intentionally, and fewer are those who the Groke answers to. She answers to Moomintroll that night, though, called forth by his light, coming through the forest with the snow groaning under the brush of her hems, freezing solid where she touches it.

Shuddering, Moomintroll holds his ground, feet firm in the snow, as the Groke shuffles right up to him, imposing and tall and so dark against the moonlit snow. She groans, and her breath bites, it's so cold.

"Here," Moomin says, forcing himself not to tremble. "I made this for you, as a gift. I'm sorry about the horse."

The Groke doesn't seem to know what to think of that, looking between him and the gift. Then, slowly, she reaches for it and Moomintroll quickly hands it over.

The Groke grips the long curved wooden lantern holder in both large hands, and the wick inside the lantern hanging from stays lit.

"I just refilled the oil," Moomintroll says while the Groke stares, spellbound, into the lantern's flame. "It should last you a while – and perhaps you can find some more lantern oil in your travels, and refill the reservoir. It's easy – just remove the cap here and pour it right in."

The Groke makes a sound like a tree falling, but happily, and Moomin quickly dances away before she can hug him. "No, no need!" he says nervously. "I'm just happy you like it!"

The Groke nods slowly and looks at the lantern, and Moomin thinks she actually smiles, all teeth, before she turns to head back into the forest. The lantern stays lit the whole way, lighting her path, and when the Groke groans in the distance, it sounds almost… content.

Feeling in turns anxiously energised and immensely satisfied, Moomin whirls around and heads back home – happy or not, the Groke is still _freezing_ to be around, and he would rather like a nice sit down beside stove with a hot cup of tea and maybe, if he's still feeling so generous, a book from Pappa's study to read.

* * *

From there, winter begins brightening, the sun rising higher and higher and lighting up the valley more and more. It gets so bright that there are days when it's all but _blinding_ , and it's hard to see at all, with the glare of sun on bright snow. But it's a clear sign that winter is finally turning towards spring. The trees begin shaking off their snow covers, and there are more birds visiting Moomintroll's bird feeders, and even the snow drifts around the Moominhouse begin going down, bit by bit.

Around the valley, people are beginning to be more active. There's others out skiing and some sledding, and more than once Moomintroll sees a woodcutter at work, dragging away freshly cut logs on horse drawn sled – easier to do, apparently, in winter, when there are no rocks or foliage to get in the way. Already people are beginning to prepare for spring, while enjoying the last of winter.

It would be a few weeks more before it would properly be spring, weeks more until the snow all melted, but at least now Moomintroll can actually see it coming, he can feel it in his fur. Somewhere, Snufkin would be packing away his camp and setting his sights for Moominvalley again, humming as he went a tune that might become his new spring song. Moomin can just see him in his mind's eye, flowers in his hat and sparkle of freedom in his eyes…

Sighing, Moomintroll leans his elbows on the window sill in his room and watches as the clouds drift over Moominvalley. It has been a long winter, and not nearly as terrible as he feared, and there are still weeks more to go, but spring is coming, and he can't _wait_.

But oh, what will he make for spring?


	5. Chapter 5

"No, this is not good at all," Moomintroll muses with a groan and sets the boat down. It is by far the finest of his bark boats – it's not even a _bark_ boat anyway, having been mostly carved from solid wood and glued together to form several decks with gunports and everything. It's a very fine thing, he thinks, and Pappa would surely admire it – but it's not suitable as a _spring gift._ Not that he's quite sure what a spring gift is supposed to be like, if it's supposed to be like anything, really. He's pretty sure he'd invented it, but…

But Snufkin had his spring song, and it was _special,_ and Moomintroll wants to do something like that. Something everyone can enjoy. Something that Snufkin could carry with him away, without it ever weighing him down. Songs were good for that, getting stuck in people's ears with no weight at all to be lugged around. Bark – or wood – boats, not so much.

Sighing heavily, Moomin sets the last boat on the table under the window and swears it will be the very last miniature boat he makes. If he ever makes another boat in his life, it had better be a full-sized sailing boat you could take trips in. Which… hmm…

"No, that would be far too much work right now," Moomintroll sighs. A full-sized boat would surely take months to make – he only has a week or two until the first day of spring. No time to build a full-sized sailing boat, with decks or otherwise.

Groaning, Moomintroll slumps over the kitchen table, arms outspread, and tries to _think_. Aside from the boats and other toys, he'd tried to make cups, but the insides were _hard_ to get right, ending up all lumpy and uneven, and the outside wasn't particularly pretty either. He'd made a spoon or several, and those at least looked like spoons, but not… not particularly _good looking_ spoons. The spatula had come out better, but it was the furthest thing from a spring gift. It's definitely no _song._

Oh, he'd make a flute or something if he knew how, but he doesn't, and if he tried, the sound would undoubtedly come out weird…

Moomin's ear flickers as he tries to imagine how a flute is made. What's a flute but a hollow tube with holes and a mouth piece? There's probably more to it, but at the same time a hollow tube can make a sound – all you need to do is blow into a bottle, and there's a note…

"That'd be one shoddy flute, if it only made one noise," Moomin muses and scratches the hair on his forehead, where it's getting in his eyes again. A bit of hair comes off, and with a grimace Moomintroll shakes it off and onto the floor, where it joins similar tufts, floating about. "Ugh. I don't even know if Snufkin can play a flute…"

… not that the gift was intended _just_ for Snufkin, but – but Snufkin just happened to be the only one he knew who could play _any_ instrument, so, it would make sense…

" _Ugh,_ " Moomin groans and covers his eyes with his paw for a moment, feeling embarrassed and stupid. Then, shaking his head, he sits up. "No, this isn't helping at all. I will go for a ski, and have a think, and maybe something will come to me."

That decided, he picks the skis from the doorway and then goes to burrow out of the house, through the much diminished snow drift that still besieges the house. Outside, the air is _much_ warmer than it has been, so much so that Moomintroll can hear water dripping, and excitedly cranes his head this way and that to find the source.

It's coming from the house – the snow on the rooftop is melting!

"A good sign! Spring is surely close by now," Moomin hums happily and then groans. "Which means I have even less time for my spring gift. Oh, dear."

His skiing trip so begins in a somewhat morose mood, as he makes his way down from the house and over the bridge, which is still covered in snow, but wouldn't be for long, it looks like. In the forest, all the trees are bare now, the snow that once covered them having melted away, or been blown away in the wind. It makes everything feel a little… wet. The snow is wet too.

He would have to brush his coat _again_ when he went back, Moomintroll thinks, and then pushes himself into motion, deciding to take a long way around the forest in hopes of finding some inspiration.

There are more creatures up and about – lots of the little ones are coming out of their hibernation. They scurry around the forest and run away from him, clambering to high tree branches to watch as he passes them by. Moomin waves to them, despite not understanding them – Snufkin could, after all, Snufkin can speak to _everything_ , and it wouldn't do for him to catch a rumour of him being rude to the forest creatures.

Moomintroll rather prefers the birds, though. They know him now – few had gotten very close to him when he'd filled the bird feeders the last time, and he thinks they trust him to be nice to them. And some of them are already starting to sing Snufkin's old spring songs… which is rather rubbing it in that Moomintroll hasn't yet made his spring gift, but it's still nice to hear.

Drawing in the smell of the snowy, wet forest, Moomin lets out a heavy sigh. He's thinking about Snufkin a lot, which is what it is, but it is also _distracting._ He has something he needs to make. Just… what? "Spring, spring, spring," he murmurs and looks around.

No inspiration comes to him, but he hears someone calling, shrill voice, familiar and panicked. Quickly turning his skis around, Moomintroll heads for it, and finds his way to a river bank where the snow has been disturbed by someone's great fall.

It's Mrs. Fillyjonk – she's slipping towards the river.

"Help, help! Oh, my hat boxes! My dress! Oh no there's water in my shoe – help!"

Moomin looks between her and between the boxes that she'd clearly dropped all over. Some of them are even floating in the water! But the important thing is that Mrs. Fillyjonk is slipping closer and closer to the water on the snow bank.

"Hold on!" Moomintroll calls and jumps off his skis, hurrying over and sticking out his ski poles. "Grab a hold of these and I will pull you up!"

She looks up and lets out a shriek and almost tips right over into the frozen river, before some survival instinct catches hold of her and she grabs the ski poles. "Saved by an abominable snowman! Oh don't eat me! Don't eat me!"

"I'm not going to eat you, Mrs. Fillyjonk – it's me, Moomintroll," he answers, a little annoyed, and hauls her towards him. "Now come on, let's get you away from the water."

"Moomintroll? What is this?" Mrs. Fillyjonk asks, disbelieving. "You look positively monstrous! Whatever happened to you – a curse, an illness, are you sick?" she backs away at that, and almost tips right back into the river.

"No, I'm not sick – just in my winter coat," Moomintroll says, huffing and takes his ski poles back. "Bit much to be berating your saviour. So much for gratitude!"

"You are leaving hair everywhere!" she answers, and lets out a little shrill noise, finding a tuft of white hair in her palms. "Oh, I got some on me! _Disgusting._ "

"So, I shed!" Moomin says and then stomps over to his skis. "See if I help you again, Mrs. Fillyjonk. Good luck with your things and good day!"

"No, wait – my hats! My hat boxes – who is going to get my hat boxes?" Mrs. Fillyjonk demands, stricken.

"I'm sure it won't be me," Moomin says, setting his feet into the skis and then thrusting himself into movement with the poles. "Good day!"

He can still hear her shrieking somewhere behind him as he heads off, shrill as a whistle, and – isn't that an idea. A whistle, he could make a whistle. Not much of a spring gift, but he knows how to make a willow whistle. Maybe it would lead him to figuring out how to make a flute, or something of the kind?

Whistling as he goes, Moomin happily leaves Mrs. Fillyjonk and her hats behind, taking the long way round back home, and enjoying the still silent parts of the forests. Not many of them left, anymore – the valley is filling with birds again, as they return from their trips to the south.

Not long to go, now, not long at all.

* * *

Moomin is on his fourth whistle and has some kind of _idea_ growing in his head when he hears a knock on the door – the very first knock he's heard on their door since last autumn. "Moomintroll!" Too-ticky calls through it. "I saw the smoke from your chimney – are you home?"

Hurrying to the door, Moomin drags it open to find that the snow drift has collapsed overnight, burying the tunnel he'd been using to get in and out – revealing the front door of the Moominhouse once more to the sunlight. He gapes at it for a moment and then smiles. "Too-ticky, hello! Please, come inside. Sorry about the mess, I, uh…"

The kitchen is a disaster, he realises with a sudden sinking feeling. He has not been cleaning it _at all_ , aside from occasionally brushing away the wood shavings into the stove, and collecting the hair when it got too much. It looks less like a room and more like some wild beast's nest – a beast that collects wooden boats.

"Uh," Moomintroll says, suddenly embarrassed over the way he's been living, and Too-ticky laughs.

"Well, I see you've been comfortable," she says, nudging with her foot at a pile of white hair on the floor. "And I think your winter coat is coming off now."

"Yes – I, uh, I'm sorry, I should've cleaned this place up, but I didn't think to expect guests, with the door all – but of course it isn't covered anymore," Moomin mutters ashamedly. "I'm sorry, I should have been better prepared. What can I do for you, Too-ticky?"

"I just thought to visit to say goodbye – I'll be leaving the bathhouse soon," Tooticky says. "The ice's melting, and it's time for me to head home."

"Are you leaving the valley entirely?" Moomintroll asks, alarmed, showing her inside.

"Well, no, I'm just going back to the cabin," Too-ticky says, chuckling as she takes a seat by the rather messy kitchen table. "But it's a little further away from the beaten path than the bathhouse, and I didn't want to worry you."

"Well, I appreciate it – uh, I don't have much to offer, but would you like some tea? There's still some left," Moomin says, looking around nervously – suddenly, he's not entirely sure where everything is, and whether he actually does have tea left.

"Tea would be nice," Too-ticky agrees, sitting down and watching amusedly as Moomintroll scrambles to serve her a respectable cup of tea. She nods to the branches Moomintroll had been hollowing out with Pappa's drill. "Working on your splendid spring gift?"

"I think so. I have a thought taking shape, but I'm not quite there yet," Moomintroll agrees, taking one of the pieces and peering into it. He'd hollowed it out almost entirely, and now the hole is far too big for either a whistle or a flute – but when he blows into it, it makes a nice sound. "What do you think?"

"I like it, very woodsy," Too-ticky says. "You're making windchimes?"

"Am I?" Moomintroll asks, considering the wood. "I mean, I did think that wind blowing through these might make a nice sound, but…"

"I think it would sound lovely, several chimes hanging on a tree branch. Maybe by the bridge," Too-ticky says, smiling.

Moomintroll clears his throat, suddenly a little uncertain. "You don't think it would become a nuisance, listening to it all the time?"

"I couldn't say, but it's not like they can't be taken down, if that's the case," Tooticky shrugs. "I think it would be a nice sound, the wind making its own music. And I think Snufkin would enjoy it too… at least for a while."

"I knew it, it's a terrible idea!" Moomin bemoans and collapses to sit across from her. "He's going to hate it, everyone will, it will sound annoying and no one will like it!"

"I think you're counting your chickens before they hatch there, Moomintroll," Too-ticky chuckles. "But if no one else likes it, then I'd be happy to have it. I would like some wood chimes in my cabin."

Moomin looks up hesitantly. "Really?"

"Really. But first you need to make it, and you might as well show it to others when you do," Too-ticky says kindly and sips her tea, looking towards the bark boats and letting out a laugh. "My you have been busy around here."

"Well, it was a terribly long winter," Moomin says, scratching at his neck and automatically shaking away the loose hair from his fingers after. "I don't suppose you'd like a boat? I really did make too many of them. Oh, I made some spoons too – and a spatula, which actually looks pretty good."

He shows Too-ticky the things he'd been making, which now that he thinks about it there are actually a lot of. She peers at them curiously, and then picks the third bark boat he made, one of the spoons and the spatula, giving them an immensely pleased look.

"Keep this up and you'll get good in no time," she says, testing the weight of the spatula. "Now, I did have another cause for coming here. Do you think you will be staying up next winter too?"

"Uhm," Moomintroll says, surprised, and sits back down, clutching the singular windchime in hand. "I – I don't know. It wasn't bad, but I didn't mean to stay awake this winter, in the first place."

"You did pretty well, in the end," she comments and gives him a calm, patient look. "And, if I may say… I think it's done you some good."

"It has?" Moomin asks, surprised.

"You've grown, Moomintroll," Too-ticky agrees, smiling. "It suits you."

Self-conscious, Moomintroll looks down at himself in his increasingly patchy winter coat and then scratches at his neck again – and again shakes the hair off. "I think I look a mess," he admits. "I don't feel any different."

"That's growth for you. It creeps up on you in secret, and suddenly you're carrying loads heavier than you knew you could," Too-ticky says and looks to the window. "Spring is almost here. There's a lot of time until next winter – but if you want to stay awake again… maybe start planning your winter stores."

"Oh, I don't know," Moomin says, uncertain. "It was so very lonely. I might want to sleep instead."

Too-ticky says nothing, but she doesn't need to, not really. As lonely as it had been and as much as Moomintroll had hated it, in the beginning… it had been nice too, at times. He isn't sure he's built for being alone like that, not always – but there had been upsides to it. Making mistakes was safer to do, when there was no one watching, if nothing else. And with no one to turn to for help – except Too-ticky herself – he'd had to figure things out on his own, and he _had,_ and that was… it was surely something great.

And… what was it that Snufkin once said, about travelling, about being alone? That it made coming back to the valley that much nicer, having had the chance to miss it? Life had ups and downs, and all sorts of uncertainties, and that was reassuring. Like winter, spring, summer and fall.

"I'll think about it," Moomin says. "I'm still not sure. But I guess I wouldn't mind, if I did stay up – if, as you said, I had some proper winter stores this time."

"That's the spirit," Too-ticky says approvingly and finishes her tea. She leaves not much after, citing that she has some packing to do, taking her gifts with her as she goes. Looking after her from the still snow-laden porch, Moomintroll hums in the tune of the dripping water and then heads back inside.

He has some spring cleaning to do, by the Groke. There are _piles_ of his hair in the corners of the room! How embarrassing.

* * *

Two days later, Moomintroll hangs his finished wind chimes on the apple tree that grows by Snufkin's camping spot, righting the tipped over bird feeders while he's at it, and listening to the slight breeze blowing wooden notes into the hollowed out branches. It's a tuneless sound, but not _terrible_ , he thinks hopefully. It has little on Snufkin's playing, of course, but there's something to it, to wind making its own music.

There's still snow on the ground, but grass is starting to show here and there, and it's already getting greener. Already some determined dandelion leaves are spreading themselves out to the sunlight, while the river flows, overfull with the melt snow, with bits and pieces of snow and ice speeding along it towards the ocean. The ocean itself is a mess of shattered ice, which the waves push to the shore, where they pile over each other and freeze together in the chilly nights.

Moomin stacks the frozen plates of ice into towers and checks the empty bathhouse and then heads back home, wondering if he should return the skis to Mamma's handbag. He wouldn't be using them anymore, after all. Maybe he'd hold off, just a little – he wants to ask her how did they fit in her handbag in the first place. And soon he'd be able to.

What a strange feeling. All this time waiting, and spring is almost here, the first day of spring is just around the corner, and now he's not sure if he… it's not that he's not _ready_ , that he isn't looking forward to it, it's just that… he's been waiting for _so long,_ he isn't sure how to stop waiting, now.

Everyone would be so surprised to see him. Or maybe horrified by the sight of his patchy winter coat, sticking everywhere in uneven patches. He can't wait to see their reaction, either way – both to him, and to the things he'd made, and the wood chimes, and to spring in general.

Mostly he just wants to _see everyone_ , with or without any satisfying reactions. Mamma and Pappa all awake and active. Little My returned from her sister's place to be a nuisance, once more. Snorkmaiden, coming back from the Snork's house… Sniff, crawling out of his hole – Moomintroll had not thought of him at all, and feels a little guilty about it now. Mostly, though…

Moomintroll looks towards the camping spot, listening to the wooden windchimes in the air. The ground is snowy there still, but it wouldn't be for long. Soon, he thinks, and sighs, and for once there's no sadness about it at all. Yes, very soon.

He's quite ready for spring, now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's that. Thank you for reading and commenting, I know it's not my usual fare, but change is a spice of life, or what ever.
> 
> (When Snufkin finally comes back, Moomin isn't there to greet him at all, and he's like "where is he?" And Little My goes "he's back home, he's being sheared!" And it cuts to Moominmamma attacking Moomintroll with a dog brush.)


End file.
